Impact Assessment of University-linked Business Incubators and Accelerators in Russia – National Benchmark 16/17

About the study

In line with global developments, Russia’s innovation ecosystem has rapidly evolved over the past few years. The country’s diverse programs have not only adapted to emerging trends but developed their own — often very successful — innovation strategies. Given these developments, it comes as no surprise that Compass’ Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 lists Moscow as the 13th best startup ecosystem in the world.

Despite the remarkable evolution of Russia’s innovation ecosystem, to date, no attempt has been made to systematically analyze and evaluate the state of the ecosystem in general and the performance of the country’s incubators and accelerators in particular. To remedy this shortcoming, The Russian Venture Company (RVC) and the Business Incubator of the Higher School of Economics (HSE {Inc}) have engaged UBI Global to conduct a pioneering in-depth mapping and performance analysis of business incubators and accelerators in Russia. The study was designed to:

• Identify the strengths and shortcomings of Russian business incubators and accelerators
• Compare Russian incubators and accelerators to international reference groups
• Identify top performing Russian innovation programs and highlight their best practices

The insights generated by this study are of value not only for incubator and accelerator managers, governments, researchers, and investors but — equally important — for budding Russian startups in search for the best-suited program.

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